Twitter lists actions taken after India's notice over farmers' protest

New Delhi : The social media giant Twitter on Wednesday enlisted actions it has taken after India's notice to suspend more than 1100 accounts promoting misinformation and hate speech in regards to the ongoing farmers' protest in the nation.

Twitter announced that it has suspended more than 500 accounts which violated the guidelines.

The government of India had asked Twitter to suspend 1,178 listed handles which it claimed to be belonging to Pakistan and Khalistan, spreading the misinformation and false perspective around the violence reported on January 26. 

"We have withheld a portion of the accounts identified in the blocking orders under our Country Withheld Content policy within India only. These accounts continue to be available outside of India," Twitter said in a blog post.

"Because we do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. To do so, we believe, would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law," it said.

In the blog post, the company also underlined the freedom of speech under Indian law.

"We will continue to advocate for the right of free expression on behalf of the people we serve and are actively exploring options under Indian law - both for Twitter and for the accounts that have been impacted. We remain committed to safeguarding the health of the conversation occurring on Twitter, and strongly believe that the Tweets should flow," it asserted.

The company specifically noted the following actions taken on the government’s appeal:

• Took action on hundreds of accounts that violated the Twitter Rules, particularly inciting violence, abuse, wishes of harm, and threats that could trigger the risk of offline harm

• Prevented certain terms that violated our Rules from appearing in the Trends section

• Suspended more than 500 accounts that were engaging in clear examples of platform manipulation and spam

• Tackled misinformation based on the highest potential for real-world harm and prioritized labelling of Tweets that were in violation of our synthetic and manipulated media policy.